SPEECH BY PRESIDENT UHURU KENYATTA DURING THE 16TH SUMMIT

OF THE EAST AFRICAN COMMUNITY HEADS OF STATE AT KENYATTA

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE CENTRE, NAIROBI ON 20TH FEBRUARY,
2015

Your Excellencies, East African Community Heads of State,

Our Council of Ministers,
The Secretary of the East African Community,
Distinguished Guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am honoured for this opportunity to welcome your Excellencies and your
delegations to Kenya and, more specifically,to our capital city, Nairobi. I trust
that you have enjoyed your stay so far, and that your tour will be rewarding
and memorable.

I thank your Excellencies for your unyielding commitment to provide real and
progressive leadership to the East African integration process.

This commitment advances our founding philosophy that greater integration

furthers the sovereignty and aspirations of our people, while isolation and
insularity reduces and undermines it.

We meet today to review the progress we have made in the process of

integration, and to provide the guidance needed to drive it forward. This
Summit takes place at a critical moment. It is the first anniversary of the
signing of the Protocol establishing the East African Monetary Union. It is
therefore gratifying to note that all Partner States have concluded the
ratification of the Protocol.

This is important progress. We look forward to the implementation of the Union

and the commencement of the realisation of its benefits in facilitating
movement and trade across our borders.

As I have observed before, the people of East Africa are united. In their hearts
and in their minds, our people are already integrated.

It is our obligation as leaders to dedicate ourselves to ensuring that this unity

and integration culminates in prosperity, stability and happiness throughout our
region.

Your Excellencies,
Our Community has continued to perform encouragingly. As a result, several
critical milestones have been achieved in the integration process. We continue
to rise and meet the expectations envisaged in establishing our Community.

For instance, intra-EAC trade grew from 3.5 billion in 2009 to about 5.8 Dollars
in 2013. This points strongly to the possibility and opportunity for higher
volumes of trade across our borders. I commend our region's business
community for embracing the vast opportunities which come with integration,
and encourage them to make greater use of them. This will create more wealth
and deliver more jobs for our young population.

The impressive growth and promise of intra-Community trade has been

accompanied and underpinned by greater regional connectivity through
enabling infrastructure development. Over the last 2 years, projects and
programmes designed to promote intensive integration have been completed.
Encouragingly, work has commenced on several cross-border roads. The VoiTaveta-Arusha road and numerous sections of the Northern and Central
Corridors are notable examples. Feasibility studies are currently being
conducted on a number of other roads. These road projects are necessary to
grow cross-border movement and trade.

Similarly, Partner States have made significant investments in the

modernisation and expansion of the railway network throughout our
Community. Whilst such projects are inevitably capital-intensive, the region
shares the awareness of their immense long-term benefits. Our unwavering
commitment to this investment is therefore borne of a strong,visionary
consensus.

Your Excellencies,
To further facilitate movement and trade across our borders, we undertook to
establish One-Stop Border Posts at our major boundary points. There has been
tremendous progress in putting these up, and a number are complete, awaiting

official opening. They include Lunga Lunga and Taveta on the Tanzania/Kenya
border as well as Rusumo on the Uganda/Rwanda border. Upon commencement
of full operations, we expect these facilities to support efficient transactions in
our Community by reducing clearance times by up to 40%.

We have acknowledged that the high cost of roaming calls across the region is
an unnecessary impediment to trade and communication in our Community. It
is unacceptable that in many instances, calling outside our continent is much
cheaper than communicating within our region. In the spirit of East African
integration, therefore, innovative interventions leading to substantial reduction
of calling charges are overdue. The implementation of a One-Area Network by
Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya is an excellent beginning.
Already, calls within this Network have reduced to about 12 US cents per
minute, while there are no charges for incoming calls. This tremendous benefit
will be shared within the entire East African Community when the region adopts
harmonized calling rates in July this year.

Your Excellencies,
Without a doubt, we have made progress in eliminating Non-Tariff Barriers to
intra-Community trade. I am grateful for the cooperation and goodwill shown
by Member States in demolishing these obstacles to integration.
Even so, about 24 Non-Tariff Barriers still remain unresolved. This denies us the
opportunity to unlock the immense promise of integration, and starves
businesses of innumerable opportunities. To grow intra-Community trade, we
need to implement decisive solutions without delay. Intra-EAC Non Tariff
Barriers ultimately translate to impediments to our region's competitiveness as
a global investment destination denying us uncountable golden opportunities.
Non-Tariff Barriers must go. I am glad to note that our Council of Ministers has
introduced a legal framework aimed at moving this agenda forward.

Your Excellencies,
Our energy sector is a key factor of our region's competitiveness. In particular,
power supply is critical to the cost of production. Conscious of this imperative,
we have undertaken substantial developments aimed at establishing
sufficient,reliable and affordable power supply. Each Partner State has
intensified investment in power generation and supply across our Community.
In coming days, it will be vital for us to channel more investment into both

power generation and cross-border inter-connection.

To support these projects, a regulatory framework must be developed. This
framework must promote higher investment in Oil &Gas to quickly unlock
benefits of our resources for all our people.

Your Excellencies,
A people-centred Community integration process is the cornerstone of our
Treaty. It is important to keep the people of East Africa aware of all the
programmes connected with regional integration. I am encouraged to observe
the various sensitisation efforts made by Partner States across our Community.
The Community must enhance these activities and ensure that they go far in
promoting accountability and public engagement.

Democracy is the other foundation stone of our Community's integration

process. It is an essential value of our Treaty. I believe that there is no longer
doubt that democracy has found a home in our Community, and is here to stay.
Burundi and Tanzania will be holding their elections this year. We wish the two
Partner States success in the elections. May they emerge from these elections
stronger, more united and totally peaceful.

Your Excellencies,
Peace and stability are vital for our region and Community. We deem peace to
be essential to integration. Political stability is the foundation of all prosperity
and aspiration.

It is our obligation as regional leaders to maintain our keen interest in

initiatives and efforts to restore peace and stability in those countries of our
region which have been troubled by conflict. Our investment in the restoration
of peace and stability in Somalia and Sudan is inspired by this knowledge. I
commend EAC Partner States for constantly and faithfully supporting our
neighbour, Somalia.
Our call remain, however, that the international
community has a significant role to play, and must do their part in this cause.

As regards South Sudan, there has been notable progress in resolving the
conflict which has haunted the young Republic. This has been achieved under
the aegis of IGAD. Whilst neighbouring States have continued to support
peace-building in South Sudan, the two parties must remember that they hold

the key to stabilising the country. The parties therefore have an obligation to
resolve any differences that may have caused the conflict in order to allow the
people of South Sudan grow their homeland.

The progress made so far strongly points to the possibility of a lasting

settlement and a return to the agenda of South Sudanese progress and selfdetermination.

Your Excellencies,
We appreciate the support our Community has received from various
development partners. In the same vein, we must bear in mind that
development and integration in East Africa is primarily and essentially our
mandate. The Community must therefore remain a priority investment for all of
us.

As I hand over the baton too my brother, His Excellency President Jakaya
Mrisho Kikwete, I sincerely thank the Summit Heads of State for their
determined, committed, inspired and visionary leadership. I also appreciate the
excellent work of our Council of Ministers in faithfully executing our directives
and resolutions. This has gone a long way in ensuring that we made progress
on various fronts.
I have not forgotten the noble efforts of our Secretary-General and his able
team as well as other organs of our Community for keeping the engine of East
African Community integration running at full-throttle.
You have been
exemplary. I have benefited immensely over the past year from the teamwork,
commitment and energy of all of you who have not relented in getting things
done.
We have made progress and moved a good distance. But a lot remains to be
done. I assure my brother, President Kikwete of my support, and trust that he
will take the integration agenda even further in the coming 12 months.

Thank you very much. God bless you. God bless EAC.